Field
The present innovations relate to systems and methods involving proximity, mapping, indexing, mobile, advertising, such as contextual product offer implementations based on consumer location and purchasing modes, index-based mobile integrated indoor location processing and mapping, integrated index and location-based offer determination/processing, and mobile integrated offer redemption, among other features.
Description of Related Information
Product manufacturers and advertisers provide advertisements in different forms in order to attract or incent consumers to purchase their products. An advertisement is a component of a product promotion and is a form of communication, designed to be used in whole or part, to persuade an audience (consumers, viewers, readers or listeners) to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Examples of traditional advertisements include promotions that are printed and delivered to consumers through the mail or within a newspaper, magazine, flier or other form of printed and distributed media. The advent of wireline and wireless communications networks, including the Internet, has provided advertisers, manufacturers and merchants with new channels and electronic methods for reaching customers and providing information, advertising and offers related to their goods and/or services. Examples of electronically delivered and online advertising include contextual ads on search engine results pages, banner ads, blogs, rich media ads, social network advertising, interstitial ads, online classified advertising, advertising networks and e-mail marketing, including e-mail spam. Many of these types of ads are delivered by an ad server and are based on demographic and consumer information collected by the advertising entity.
An advertisement may include a promotional offer or incentive (e.g., a coupon, rebate, time sensitive discount, cross selling discount or other discount, etc.) to encourage the consumer to purchase a particular product or service or not purchase a competitive product or service. The presentation of an advertisement to a consumer, or simply the inclusion of a promotion through some form of physical or electronic media can be called an impression. If the consumer purchases the advertised product or service or decides not to purchase a competitive product in response to the advertisement, it can be called a conversion. A conversion is said to occur when a user consummates a transaction related to a current or previously served advertisement. What constitutes a conversion may vary from case to case and can be determined in a variety of ways. The greater the number of conversions relative to the number of advertisement impressions, the more effective the advertisement or promotion is.
In addition to contextual targeting, advertising can be targeted based on a consumer's behavior. This practice is known as behavioral targeting. For example, if a user is known to have recently visited a number of automotive shopping/comparison sites based on analysis enabled by cookies stored on the user's computer, that user can then be served auto-related ads when they visit other, non-automotive sites. However, both traditional and electronic, sales and marketing campaigns are often not as effective as they might be, because they often provide the consumer with advertisements or offers that the consumer is not interested in, or alternatively provide the consumer with advertisements or offers for products they are interested in, but at the wrong time to convert the interest to a sale.
In many cases, a merchant or manufacturer spends resources to send advertisements or promotions to a wide range of recipients without the ability to specifically target consumers interested in the specific products or services they are offering. A good example of this would be a coupon circular in a newspaper or a coupon pack mailed to a particular market. These traditional methods have many disadvantages including, but not limited to, the inability to specifically target end consumers and/or the exact product or service, low conversion rates, significant overhead and high costs.
Additionally, many advertisements and promotional offers are received by the consumer when they are not in an active purchasing mode or cannot take action with regards to the advertisement or offer. Offers such as coupons or rebates often require the consumer to plan ahead and/or collect physical or electronic media in order to take advantage of the offer when they are in an active purchasing mode. Furthermore, consumers may physically receive, through traditional means, or locate merchant or manufacturer's offers on the Internet for goods or services they intend to purchase, but fail to locate desired products at the specific merchant location, hereinafter “facility”, within which they are shopping; even when the goods or products desired may be located in close proximity to them. These scenarios result in discounts or promotions that are not utilized and in consumers, merchants and manufacturers not receiving the benefit of such discounts or promotions.
It is generally accepted that the best time to deliver an advertisement or promotional offer for a product or service is when the consumer is in an active purchasing mode for that specific, alternative or related products (e.g., cross-ruff, competitive, etc). Industry data shows that conversions during the active shopping mode are 5 to 10 times more effective than indirect methods. Additionally, a consumer is also more likely to be influenced by an advertisement or promotion when the product or service is in immediate proximity to them and convenient to purchase or take action on.
Current methods for delivering advertising and offers based on a consumer's interests and location are mainly limited to macro locations (i.e. a mall, store or outdoor location determined by GPS or other methods available on a mobile device). Existing methods do not exist to narrow the customer's location down to an actual row, position in a row, or specific product in a row while shopping. Additionally existing methods do not work in indoor locations with enough granulation to provide meaningful location information for proximity marketing.
There is a need to develop apparatuses and methods to facilitate advertisers in providing targeted sales advertisements and marketing offers to consumers based on the exact consumers' location, including precise indoor locations within a merchant facility, the products and alternative products of immediate interest to the consumer, the consumers active shopping or purchasing mode and historical, demographic and product preferences of the consumer. There is also a need to provide consumers' the ability to easily and quickly find products within a merchant that they are or have previously expressed interest in purchasing or receiving promotions for.